Study on effect of composite flocculants on marine algal culture

Microalgae downstream process, especially for the separation of biomass from the culture, poses a great challenge to its large scale biofuel production. Efficient harvesting of biomass is thus of great significance and essential for mass production of biodiesel. Flocculation of Nannochloropsis oculata using composite flocculants was investigated in this paper. Following this study, as the dosage of flocculant was 4 vol. ⁰/₀₀ and pH was 9, the highest flocculation activity of above 99% was obtained within 5 mins. A linear correlation between algal density and flocculant dosage was observed. The flocculated medium supplemented with fresh medium showed less adverse growth effects in the subsequent algal cultivation. These results indicated that the flocculation with composite flocculants is efficient, and effective, which may have great potential in the practical applications.